I think a lot of people forget that it's not intended as another end game feature it's for new players to learn basic mechanics such as interrupts, avoiding shit and standing behind (at least for dps I haven't tried tank/heals). They've said a few times it may replace ilvl as requirements for LFG tool, which if they do I think is a great idea. Someone's who done a little bit of that IMO is better to take than someone who's dinged 90 gone straight to TI and decked out 496+ only to find out they have no idea how to play the game.

Something for the new player should seriously not exist at the fucking level cap only :x

Something for the new player should seriously not exist at the fucking level cap only :x

As it is there are complaints that certain specs don't have the tools to deal with the challenges very well. This would be even worse if you were able to access it before max level when all your abilities were unlocked.

I havent played since Wotlk, came back 2 weeks ago and tried the proving grounds as disc priest.
REALLY challenging compared to the LFR and normal healing.
Gold was very hard, at least as disc.
i would run heroics, raids, etc with anyone who passes gold any day.
it definitely gives noobs a better sense of their role. IF they actually go in there and try and dont give up after 1 wipe.

It should give everyone the same stats instead of scaling.
I don't want to waste gold/time to min/max the scaling.

That would punish good players who are aware of their stat priorities and want to min-max. Different stat priorities enable different playstyles and finding the correct one is an integral part of raiding in WoW (less so for DPS, but true for most tanks and healers). I think ideally it would snap-shot your gear as you enter and let you do free reforges/gems inside that would be reverted when you exit.

That would punish good players who are aware of their stat priorities and want to min-max. Different stat priorities enable different playstyles and finding the correct one is an integral part of raiding in WoW (less so for DPS, but true for most tanks and healers). I think ideally it would snap-shot your gear as you enter and let you do free reforges/gems inside that would be reverted when you exit.

This ^^^^
I think it is silly that for a feature with no real reward we are expected to reforge/regem and possible get a a second gear set (since legendary cloak/meta does not work). For many classes this is required since stat weight changes so drastically when with item level change of this magnitude.

You get to drink to full mana after every 10th wave so what's the difference?

Originally Posted by Blachshma

Since you can drink after 10 waves anyway, it wouldn't hurt to fill up your mana bar and go when ready for the next 10 waves.

You guys haven't done PG recently, have you? You don't get to drink every 10 waves any more because the NPCs still haven't cleared the previous few waves. What used to be a chance to drink is now a catch-up point where the NPCs finally get to clear out the previous waves before immediately diving into a new one. There is no opportunity to drink any more. If you did PG first week and haven't touched it since I urge you to try it out again before commenting further on its current state.

You guys haven't done PG recently, have you? You don't get to drink every 10 waves any more because the NPCs still haven't cleared the previous few waves. What used to be a chance to drink is now a catch-up point where the NPCs finally get to clear out the previous waves before immediately diving into a new one. There is no opportunity to drink any more. If you did PG first week and haven't touched it since I urge you to try it out again before commenting further on its current state.

I entered proving grounds on my resto druid 2 days ago to check what had changed since I got my title, this was after seeing so many people in this thread making strange statements about the healing PGs. I found it to be even easier than before. Mobs were stacking up nicely, they had changed so that the acolytes only put up 1 debuff at the time instead of 2 during the double acolyte waves. Before I had to choose to dispell one and let the other blow, now I could dispell both if needed. The burrowers seemed to burrow less frequently and the rogue+mage was interrupting properly.

I was also able to drink up after wave 10, 20 and 30 without issue. I honestly dont know what you are talking about NPCs not killing the mobs. My NPCs did so just fine.

Volun-told - A supposedly optional event, award, assignment, or activity in which a person (or persons) are required to attend either by persons-in-charge nominating them or their peers expecting them to be there. The individual often has no say in the matter, and non-attendance in frowned upon.I am so tired of seeing terrible people, being admired, for being terrible people.

You guys haven't done PG recently, have you? You don't get to drink every 10 waves any more because the NPCs still haven't cleared the previous few waves. What used to be a chance to drink is now a catch-up point where the NPCs finally get to clear out the previous waves before immediately diving into a new one. There is no opportunity to drink any more. If you did PG first week and haven't touched it since I urge you to try it out again before commenting further on its current state.

AFAIK priest, druid and monk all have the option do deal dps to help clear the last wave faster.

I'm not very familiar with paladins and shamans, but if I remember correctly they have some offensive options as well.

Maybe that's the reason there are so very few paladins and shamans on top of the healer PG rankings.

- - - Updated - - -

Originally Posted by Firefly33

I entered proving grounds on my resto druid 2 days ago to check what had changed since I got my title, this was after seeing so many people in this thread making strange statements about the healing PGs. I found it to be even easier than before. Mobs were stacking up nicely, they had changed so that the acolytes only put up 1 debuff at the time instead of 2 during the double acolyte waves. Before I had to choose to dispell one and let the other blow, now I could dispell both if needed. The burrowers seemed to burrow less frequently and the rogue+mage was interrupting properly.

I was also able to drink up after wave 10, 20 and 30 without issue. I honestly dont know what you are talking about NPCs not killing the mobs. My NPCs did so just fine.

I got a lot of double debuffs yesterday. Being on a priest and having mass-dispel helped though.

I got a lot of double debuffs yesterday. Being on a priest and having mass-dispel helped though.

Maybe just me that got some kind of RNG luck then.

I mean, I was getting double debuffs, but they were staggered by about 4-6 seconds allowing me to dispell them both easily.

Volun-told - A supposedly optional event, award, assignment, or activity in which a person (or persons) are required to attend either by persons-in-charge nominating them or their peers expecting them to be there. The individual often has no say in the matter, and non-attendance in frowned upon.I am so tired of seeing terrible people, being admired, for being terrible people.

I think it covers a few things
-challenging content for solo players, complete with leaderboards
-way to show off your skills
-way to prove your skills to a raid/guild leader when looking for an invite. Referencing prior raid achievements isn't always useful because you might have been carried.
-a training ground for new players who are unlikely to have been challenged while leveling and don't want to just learn by watching video guides and getting harassed by other players in their first few dungeon/raid runs.

The only thing I dislike about Proving Grounds... its basically saying, if you are a good "Role" you can carry the worst group possible, so go carry failures to success.

Proving grounds feels like LFR... it feels like Pugs ... its not a real satisfying gameplay experience. It's the proverbial "rub our nose in it" experience. Deal with all the crap you are given, because we have no plans to fix it. People are terrible at this game, we know it, and we wont do anything about it, so here, learn how to deal with all these "failures" and "mediocre" or "downright terrible and trying to wipe" the raid people.

I for one would love to see a real proving grounds, where you do your job, the NPC's do their job. And its legitimately difficult with that said.

Tanking should be an endless flow of mobs to agro, and the healer heals like a champ, and you don't kite or intentionally stand in fire to game it. You take agro, you use cooldowns for large boss attacks, you turn the boss away from the raid. You manage tank swaps with your co-tank. Healers heal... like mad, and burst heal people with debuffs, focus the tank correctly when necessary. You do your Role... without doing all sorts of other role stuff.

Proving grounds are really not a quality experience, its the worst possible experience. It just feels wrong.

We think we climb so high, Upon the backs we've condemned ...We face our Conϛequence.

I found the DPS challenge fun (received my proven assailant title) but it certainly highlights how badly the game is balanced. Class, spec and even racial abilities play into how well you'll do later on. I'm not really sure what it is supposed to teach you, though. The DPS challenge didn't teach me anything beyond memorizing the wave patterns. Overall, I'd call the feature a failure only because it's only worth minimal time investment, isn't balanced, uses the lame downscaling system which highlights problems for classes, doesn't teach you anything and most everyone couldn't seemingly care less if it existed or not.

I mean, it would be fine (more like, whatever) if it was just a bonus but I'm sure it isn't. People who honestly believe Blizzard isn't losing time or resources to these distractions at the expense of more worthwhile content such as dungeons or whatever else are really deluding themselves. Blizzard already makes a thousand excuses as to why they shouldn't have to do the most simple things. They don't need people defending them.

The night time thing, for example. Fly over to the Golden Stair area at night while the raining thunderstorm effect is going on-- there is a good template of what the night should look like in the game. Being as it is already in the game, excuses are just that.

As it is there are complaints that certain specs don't have the tools to deal with the challenges very well. This would be even worse if you were able to access it before max level when all your abilities were unlocked.

I certainly agree, but there needs to be some sort of system in place, that's at least somewhat like this, as you gain levels, where you use the abilities you've learned, let's say, every 10 levels, for a challenge, which "unlocks" the ability to level the next 10 levels. The endgame PG could stay as is. Just something to try and teach people their abilities as they level, since the game seems to be very against that at present :x

I've seen lots of unrealistic ranks for tanks/healing challenge lately

I believe theres an exploit that makes you able to stealth through endless waves and afk your way to high ranks.
Just look at the top 1 tank at the time, 290 waves thats pretty shady if you ask me. Also a healer @ 240 waves heal-challenge

I fuckinhg hate proving geounds im 662ilvl and doing just fine a big fuck you to blizzard to linkung this to legendary quest..

O_o the proving grounds are in no way required for the legendary quest. In fact, the only reason you would need them is if you need to LFR to complete the quest, which anyone raiding normal or above is completely exempt from so.... yeah. Sounds more like your problem is that you can't or won't do stuff with a guild, and/or pug normal mode content, than that proving grounds are in some way broken.